august 2018 : 2 years and 1 month ago

There were some days where Lily felt like she could conquer anything life threw at her. Those were admittedly few in number but had started popping up more frequently since she and Liam started dating. Everything was easier to tackle when you had a constant sidekick (or a cheerleader—that was a much funnier metaphor to envision) that you could fall back on.

And then there were still the occasional days where getting out of bed felt like rocket science. Today was one of those.

She looked at her phone screen for what was probably the dozenth time that morning and sighed. It was already 11:50. I'll get up in ten minutes, she thought. I can do it. I can.

But she had been telling herself the same thing for the past few hours. Although she had actually dragged herself out of bed two times already, both were just to waddle down to the kitchen for snacks before crawling right back under the covers. Getting up to stay up for the whole day was a much more overwhelming task.

Liam had yet to reply to the text she sent him about forty-five minutes ago to let him know she was feeling low and might just stay in today. She doubted he would be irked—he had his off days, too. It was just a thing that happened sometimes. But that did leave her slightly unsure as to why he hadn't replied yet. He wasn't usually one to sleep in this late.

She rolled over on her side, guilt nipping at her conscience like a frigid wind. She shouldn't be laying here. She should be out doing something and enjoying the last couple of days of freedom before the school year started, but she assumed that impending doom was the very thing doing this to her. She had quite the talent for worrying about stuff that hadn't happened yet.

There was a light knock on the door. She suspected it was her mom, come to lure her out of her room by offering her Starbucks or Chick-fil-A.

She cleared her throat quietly before she spoke, her voice a bit scratchy from not doing any talking yet today. "Come in."

The door cracked open. Lily expected to see her mother's eyes looking back at her, but instead she found her boyfriend's.

As happy as she was to see him there, she was honestly a little surprised that her parents sent him up here. Not that they didn't get along with him; they did. The handful of occasions they had met him all went smoothly. He was exceptionally polite and they weren't the most subtle about liking that he came from money despite how little Lily herself was concerned with that facet. But they were also very protective and usually against the idea of her being alone in her room with a boy unless the door was open. They must have trusted him – and her, for that matter – more than she credited them for.

"Hi," she said as he came over to sit next to her. She was glad she was much less self-conscious about looking like a zombie in front of him than she was two months ago. "What are you doing here?"

Liam leaned down to kiss her cheek. His kisses didn't always send swarms of excited butterflies throughout her insides like they used to. There were still a couple of them hanging around, fluttering less frantically than they once did. But following behind them was a ray of sun that wrapped around Lily's whole being like a hug, bringing her calm and comfort and much-needed peace. Familiarity.

"What do you think I'm doing here?"

She reached for his hand. "I'm gonna be boring," she mumbled as a forewarning. "I don't know how soon I'll have it in me to move."

"Then we stay here as long as we need to," he told her, his voice just as soft as his lips were on her cheek. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Not that I can think of," she answered meekly. "But I do like the company."

Staying in bed for a while longer didn't seem like such a bad idea now that someone was keeping the other half of it warm. She curled back up on her side and let her eyes slowly close, willing his presence to help draw the stress out of her veins so that she might find the thought of getting up soon to be bearable.

The mattress dipped at her side as she felt him shift slightly away from her, followed a couple of seconds later by the sensation of his fingers gingerly stroking her hair. No, not his fingers. When the nearly inaudible plasticy sound of bristles tickled her ear, she pieced together that he had grabbed her hairbrush off the nightstand.

A small smile found its way onto her lips. "You're not gonna get anywhere doing it that lightly," she advised.

Liam's hand was light as a feather, the brush barely skimming against the top layer of her hair.

"I didn't want to hurt you," he murmured, the low hum of his voice relaxing every muscle in her body.

"I'll tell you if it hurts." Her mind flashed back to all the times as a kid when she got giant knots in her hair and her mom would brush it so aggressively that Lily thought all of it was going to get tugged out.

Near-silence washed back over them like the rising tide coming in. Lily adjusted positions so that he could carefully untuck a lock of hair that she was laying on, the room getting quieter and quieter as the bristles were met with less resistance. Once they glided through completely smoothly a few times, he set the brush back on the nightstand.

Then it actually was his hand that was playing with her hair. She assumed it was simply meant to soothe her, and it did, but after a few moments of this, she detected an unusual pattern to his movements. His fingers kept running through her hair and fiddling with thick locks of it before he dropped it all and started over.

"Are you...trying to braid it?"

"Um, try is the key word there."

A giggle snuck out of her. She scooted away from him only so that she could lean precariously far over the edge of the bed to grab a hair tie that she remembered tossing onto the floor the other day. Once she pulled herself back up, she reached to the back of her head to divide the hair off into three sections and start the braid for him. His hands brushed against hers when he took over for her, sending an unexpected trail of tingles dancing across her skin like fireworks in the night sky.

"All done," he said quietly.

She rolled back over to face him. He wore a little smile on his lips like he was content with the end result of his braiding efforts and now Lily was free to toss and turn however much she pleased without worrying about how much her hair was going to tangle in the process.

She didn't usually enjoy having her hair pulled back in any capacity. She thought it made her look childish. But this time, it really did make her feel pretty. Not because she thought she looked any different than usual, but because he was sweet enough to deal with her hair when she didn't have the energy to do it herself.

She lifted a hand to his cheek, his skin warm and smooth under her fingertips except for the finest trace of stubble on his jaw that wouldn't get caught with a razor, and admired him for a moment before closing her eyes to give him a slow kiss.

"Thank you," she whispered with her eyes still closed, smiling as she felt his lips brush against the tip of her nose and plant a tiny kiss there.

"Anytime, Lils."

After pulling the blankets back up to her shoulders, she nuzzled against Liam's chest and wrapped her arms around him in a snug koalaesque hug. She contentedly sighed, breathing in the clean scent that lingered on his skin from what must have been a morning shower. His hair was damp against her fingertips when she reached up to touch it.

"I wasn't really thinking about getting your pillow wet," he mumbled, already sounding sleepy from the short time they had been laying there. "I'm sorry."

"I sleep with damp hair all the time," she assured him, bringing her arm back down around his waist. "You fit right in."

A nearly silent laugh thrummed through his chest and Lily closed her eyes again. She didn't try to keep track of how long they stayed cocooned up in her blankets—they could have stayed there all day and it still wouldn't have felt like enough time. This was her happy place.

"You should add expert cuddler to your resume," she eventually told him after a long stretch of no talking in which the only sounds were the nearly inaudible whistling of air coming out the ceiling vent and the scrunching of blankets that occurred each time one of them shifted positions.

If her body got stiff from being in one position and she adjusted it, Liam seemed to know just the right way to move in response to her and keep them both comfortable. He was quite the intuitive cuddle buddy.

"On second thought," she contemplated as her fingers lazily trailed along the soft fabric of his shirt. "I kinda want to keep you to myself."

"I'm all yours."

She tilted her chin up to press a light kiss on his jaw. She wished they could stay here in this tranquil bubble and keep giving each other little kisses forever, but she knew they couldn't.

"I think we should move this do nothing party outside," she said, finally ready to accept that she would have to change out of her puppy-patterned pajamas. "I think some fresh air will do me good. Could we go lay a blanket out in the garden again?"

They were laying side by side again a short half-hour later, staring up at the wispy white clouds that blended into the pale blue of the sky like a Monet painting. One of Lily's hands was joined with Liam's while the other fiddled with loose threads on the quilt beneath them or reached over to feel the dewy grass.

He glanced over and watched her fingers playing with pieces of grass. "Anxious?"

She let the strands slip out from between her fingers and rolled onto her side to face him. "No, just force of habit."

They just watched each other for a minute, his thumb gently running against hers, but then something caught his eye. Liam's lips formed a tiny grin as he reached over and plucked a tiny daisy out of the grass and tucked it into her braid. Caught off guard, she laughed delightedly, her heart singing like the birds in the nearby trees.

"How does it feel to be a flower murderer?" she mused.

His hand floated down from her hair to caress her cheek. "I have a pretty nice view," he offered.

Rosy warmth simmered up to her cheeks. "Does everyone else in your life know you're this cheesy?" she teased.

He smiled. "Absolutely not."

Lily ended up in the exact same spot a few days later, this time alone. Her eyes were no longer pulled up to the sky to watch clouds drift by, but rather drawn down to the pages of the textbook lying in front of her.

She was already drowning in reading assignments two days into the semester. Liam's absence was due to the fact that he was currently in class, but she had been in dire need of somewhere away from the hustle and bustle of campus where she felt like she had enough space to breathe and not too many distractions. Going to her house was always an option, but she wasn't in the mood to indulge her parents in a play-by-play of how every second of school had gone so far and they would surely ask for one if she showed up there.

Jo, on the other hand, was just the right amount of company. She was doing her own work, so the two could exchange a couple of sentences of friendly chat when she happened to pass by without the pressure of needing to sustain the conversation any longer. Her faint humming and the sound of rustling leaves as she tended to the plants were good background noise for Lily's study session.

A sheen of stickiness was starting to form on her skin from being out in the morning sun, but she found that she concentrated better here. If she let herself go inside and be near her laptop, the temptation to curl up on the couch and pull Netflix up could very well become irresistible.

The sudden ringing of her phone yanked her attention away from her book. She half expected to see Liam's contact photo light up the screen – perhaps he got out of class early – but instead it was Henry's.

Although it was still early enough on the West Coast that he probably wouldn't be at work yet, she was surprised—a morning call from him was rare. She tried to catch up with him at least once a week, but they usually Facetimed in the evenings. Seattle seemed to be good for him. As far as she could tell, he was living his best life exploring the city, making friends with his coworkers, and blowing his paychecks on tattoos. He was in a pleasant mood every time they talked aside from some understandable fatigue brought on by working all day, so she didn't expect to answer the call and see him looking a bit downcast.

"Hi, Henry," she said with some reluctance, dropping his usual title of "loser" in case this was something serious.

"Hi," he replied mildly, almost timidly. "Do you have some free time today?"

Lily tensed. She had become so adjusted to only seeing him in a good mood that she almost forgot he was ever anything otherwise. "Yeah, why?"

"It's, um-" He took a nervous breath. "It's Sarah's birthday and I usually bring flowers and this is my first time not being there. I didn't expect to feel so weird about it because I'm sure my parents will go sometime today, but...I don't know. I guess I feel like a bad brother. Would you be able to bring some for me?"

Her heart became heavy in her chest, an anchor of sympathy tugged to the bottom of the sea. She had completely forgotten that Sarah's birthday was in August, but she wondered how long it had been on his mind. Days? Weeks? Lily had the luxury of forgetting, but Henry could only run so far from the grief that coursed through his veins.

"You're not a bad brother," she consoled him. "Of course I will. What kind of flowers do you want?"

"I hadn't really gotten that far," he confessed. "I usually just get whatever looks good. Why don't you pick what you like?"

"I can do that," she told him. "Do you want to see them later?"

"My lunch is at noon if you're free then."

Lily nodded. Her only class today was a dreadful 8 a.m.

"I guess I better get going to work," he sighed, sounding very much not in the mood to work. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she answered gently. "But you don't have to thank me."

"That doesn't mean I won't do it, anyway," he said, a wistful almost-smile brought to his lips. "Love you."

"Love you, too."

When he ended the call, Lily released a long breath and blankly stared at her phone screen for a few more seconds. She tried glancing back over at her textbook despite already knowing that her brain was no longer going to be able to focus on that.

Maybe fate was telling her to take a break from the homework, although she doubted that dwelling on melancholy thoughts would offer any more clarity than her eyes glazing over the same paragraph over and over again would. Maybe she should simply enjoy the fresh air for a few minutes. After all, birthdays were meant to be enjoyed in some shape or form.

She sat up and stretched her arms, debating if she wanted to go grab some coffee from inside. But she froze when her eyes landed on Jo, who was over by one of the bushes. She was watching on with a sad expression, her garden shears dangling in her hand by her side like she had stopped working when she overheard Lily and Henry talking.

Lily's cheeks warmed. She somehow had completely forgotten about Jo's presence and hadn't particularly been keeping her voice down while talking on the phone, so she could only assume that it was overheard in its entirety.

Her lips parted to conjure up an explanation, yet she wasn't sure how much of one was needed. She had always gotten the impression that Jo was a rather perceptive person and Liam let on that such was true. Judging from her expression, Jo had picked up on the basic gist of what was going on.

Lily climbed up from her blanket to walk over to Jo. "Would you, um, not mention this to Liam," she mumbled sheepishly. "I haven't told him anything. I, um, I don't really think it's mine to tell-"

"I won't," Jo interrupted, placing a calming hand on Lily's shoulder.

She nodded, unsure of what else to say. But Jo seemed to understand. She simply held out the garden shears. "Whatever you want is all yours."

It took Lily's brain a few seconds to piece together what she was implying. A lump formed in her throat once she did. "Are you sure? I don't wanna mess up your garden."

"I'm sure," Jo promised. "I love looking at all the flowers, of course, but some beautiful things ought to be used every once in a while. I don't mind cutting them for you if you'd feel better about that."

So that was what they did. Lily wished she knew what Sarah's favorite color was, but even if she had thought to ask Henry about that, it was best not to bring him any additional heartache. She didn't know a better place to start than picking out a couple of lilies on her own behalf, but now that she was looking at them closely, she thought that they were really beautiful.

No wonder they were Liam's favorites.

Wind whistled through the air like the whispers of the dead whose graves Lily passed by as she navigated her way through the cemetery with the bundle of flowers nestled gingerly in her arms. Jo had found a ribbon for her when they were done cutting the flowers so that she could tie them into a bouquet, a gesture she was particularly grateful for now that she saw how breezy of a day it turned out to be. She didn't want any loose flowers getting carried off in the wind so soon.

A level of guilt that couldn't be ignored had been eating at the edges of her mind since she realized that she hadn't been to Sarah's grave a single time that she could remember. She presumed she came here with her parents right after, but she was only a toddler back then. She had to ask her mother where the grave was.

Her parents rarely spoke about Sarah, as if she never existed, but she had always chalked it up to an understandable aversion to dwelling on hard things. Only now did it feel so wrong. That was their niece. Her cousin. But she might as well have been a total stranger. All memory of Lily's first friend was lost to her and she was left reaching for nostalgia that wasn't there.

Her footsteps slowed as she approached the grave. Henry's parents had already left a large bouquet of flowers there, all of them purple. So purple must have been her favorite color, Lily thought.

Another pang clawed at her heart as she knelt down to lay her flowers alongside theirs. Sixteen years was such a long time to be missing someone, yet they all still had so much more time left to go before they could see her again. She wondered if they ever took August 15th off or if they always just went to work like it was any other day. That was clearly what Henry was doing, but she didn't know how much choice he had in the matter.

Lily pulled out her phone to check the time. It was 2:01 here, 12:01 in Seattle. She pressed the Facetime button and waited to see if he would pick up or if he was running late.

His slightly-pixelated face – she supposed dead people didn't need good cell service – appeared on her screen a couple of seconds later. He appeared to be sitting somewhere outside, probably to get away from where his coworkers could hear him.

"Hi," she said softly. "Do you want to see them?"

He nodded, so she flipped the camera around for him. Relievingly, he smiled. "You found better ones than I ever do."

"I have my ways." Thanks, Jo.

He let out some sort of a mixture between a quiet laugh and sigh before falling quiet, watching the way the petals daintily swished in the breeze and whispering a little "Happy 21st, sis," that Lily could barely hear.

Henry cleared his throat. "Well," he addressed her again, his smile finding its way back to him. "I think I'm gonna let myself have a drink and some cake later because I'm sure that's what she'd be doing today."

"I will be a responsible child and not do the underage drinking thing," she informed him. "But I might have to join you on the cake part."

His smile turned into a knowing grin. "That's good. We don't need a repeat of my 21st."

Henry himself was entirely reasonable on his birthday last year and drank a modest amount of alcohol because he had to go to work the next morning. Lily, on the other hand, accidentally went overboard. Growing up, she had never been particularly interested in drinking despite the fact that her parents usually had wine around to sometimes have with dinner, so she had little concept of what constituted a lot. Whatever fancy Italian wine his parents recommended was super good, so she sort of just kept pouring herself glasses of it.

That paired with the fact that she didn't realize how little food she had on her stomach resulted in her unintentionally ending up drunk. She could practically still hear Henry snickering as he helped her down the hall (despite her insistence that she was perfectly capable of doing so on her own), tucked her into his bed, and turned the light out. Even her parents, who normally would have freaked out about her drinking out of their sight, thought it was pretty funny when it was explained to them why she didn't come home that night like she initially planned on.

Lily crossed her arms. "Are we still making fun of me for that?"

"We're always making fun of you for that."

"Loser," she sighed.

He smiled. "I know."

____________________

:')

Thanks for reading! I hope you guys liked this chapter <3